AO - Max security for a connected world

I find it funny that I have the exact opposite problem as everyone else.

I was one of the people who suggested paid tutorial submissions... I like the idea of a Tutorial of the week. It's not that different from when users were asked to tell their best virus (I believe) related story and were sent AO swag for the top stories.

I'm actually disappointed because I can't qualify for the $50 because I'm a mod. To me, the idea of writing for a couple hours and getting the money to buy a case of beer or a bottle of Grey Goose is pretty tempting. As has been mentioned, people have posted tutorials here for years, nothing has changed, except they now have the opportunity to get a little spending money.

I also question your comment regarding "free content to corporations" Eg... Do you think that the people running Slashdot and Digg aren't making money? They are rolling in it, yet they still get user contributions. How about YouTube? YouTube is definitely corporate, and now removes copyrighted materials (something it didn't used to do) and they still get tons of user driven content. Why should AO pay you for your content, people give content to sites all the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy

Stop acting like children. AO is a free-for-all for a reason. If one feels that they need to be paid for their 'expert' opinions, they would be employed elsewhere. Otherwise, share your insights and knowledge freely...or go away.

Remember why we are here.

O

Lighten up man.

Hell, I'll give it a shot. If not for a bottle of grey goose, then maybe as a sign of good faith before you all get the idea the TAZ crowd only wants to put crap up yer arse all the time. Wich we do, but that's not the point.

It's funny how booze turns the argument arround for me. There's a pitfall, calling a 26 page argument a fallacy AFTER the free-booze card came arround.

Regarding the payment situation...

Corporate-owned or not, it's us -- members and those who are googling for answers and stumble upon AO -- who benefit from the knowledge shared. I think that makes it worth continuing to write tutorials for free. Who cares if a corp run the site or not?

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Starting out with luring friends is fine, if your forum happens to cover a topic that your friends are interested in, and they want to help you out. A corporate owned situation is a little different.

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I understand, certainly. However, I wonder if some thinking outside the box is necessary here. Activity has died down since AO "went corporate" so to speak, as I've consistently observed. This suggests that either AO is another victim to a growing Internet trend, or the current strategy simply isn't working. If the latter, a new approach needs to be taken.

If you have a near-dead site where the current membership is offering little to nothing, then you pretty much are back to square one as if it were a new site. Which means you're back to needing "square one" type strategies. Such as recruiting friends and word of mouth. ;)

I don't know, I'm just trying to offer some brainstorming on this one...I'll be the first to admit I may be on the wrong track with the idea.

But I'm sad to blow through here every so often and see so little of value going on. We're partly to blame of course, and I try to put my money where my mouth is and crank up some decent topics when they come to mind.

Well I wish I could just prevail upon some friends to post to liven things up, but none of my friends happen to be security mavens. Also, I dunno that I'd call this site "near dead". Still getting between 1500 and 2000 posts per month. Not busy, but not quite dead.

That's why we've opened a dialogue, to try and find some ideas to improve things. Some of those things suggested we're not able to do, but some of the others that we CAN do, we want to do.

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Also, I dunno that I'd call this site "near dead". Still getting between 1500 and 2000 posts per month. Not busy, but not quite dead.

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Point noted. I'm speaking from a relative perspective of course -- My POV comes from when I first started as a punk college kid in AO some years ago...say around the 2003 era of the site. Compared to the kind of activity we had those days, the site is dead by comparison, IMHO. Keep in mind AO has always set a high bar for itself. 2000/mo. is good, but "not good enough" compared to the kind of potential this site has always had. And I don't count post numbers, I look at what active topics I see on the front page vs. what topics were active a couple of days ago, and if those topics are even worth clicking.

Ok, for my benefit of better understanding how the site is running, let me ask a couple of questions if they're not too prodding:

1) For what purpose does JupiterMedia run AO? i.e. what makes AO a profitable entity worthwhile of maintaining? "Why" is AO of any value to JupiterMeida?

2) If AO is the product, who are the customers?

On another note...

In regard to the debate on who should be delivering quality content -- I see the two sides as "users should be writing tutorials" and "mods/admins should be providing content". That said...

Though I've been here for years, I do not fancy myself a security "expert" by AO standards, and I'm certainly not expert enough to submit the kind of quality tutorials needed here. I came to AO -- and continue coming to AO -- as a student. As much as I'd love to help add to the expert content of this site, I really can't give you what you need.

If many of us coming here are coming here to learn and not to teach, then who is going to teach via tutorials?

The answer in short is some of the veteran experts who haven't abandoned the site yet, but we have to get them to stop complaining first. ;) But I do think if some of the staff could occasionally throw some content out to start some new fires, it would be helpful.

Hi,

I was wondering if AntiOnline & Members alike can benefit from the below statement by John F.Kennedy

"Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You - Ask What You Can Do For Your Country". - John F.Kennedy


If I may rephrase it to,

"Ask Not What AntiOnline Can Do For You - Ask What You Can Do For AntiOnline".

Cheers
R.o.P.E

We're trying to add new content ourselves as well. You'll notice topics started by phernandez, he's a site editor, as well as our mod crew chipping in even more than always have.

Certain things requested like a honey pot, those we can't grant. We struggle ourselves to find resources when we have to dev a new forum or put up a dev to upgrade an existing forum. We usually have to either wait or do some juggling to accomplish that. That's the reality of life in the corporate world, I'm afraid.

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You'll notice topics started by phernandez, he's a site editor, as well as our mod crew chipping in even more than always have.

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Excellent. I'll keep an eye out for those.

Look, in my point of view - we might not have alot of posts but we have experience here.

If I want some answers to a certain technical or security Q, I can either post here, get maybe 5 posts reply or post on another forum and get 30 replies.

The posts from here will be genuine VS the crap on other forums.

I believe quality VS quantity.

Just my opinion.